The Rush County Historical Society, Inc.

“. . . I dedicate this building, its story,
and its related exhibits to the memory of those intrepid pioneers who years
ago accepted the challenge to conquer these western plains and on them
build lasting homes for their children, and their childrens children.”

The museum is housed in a native stone house
built by homesteader Dan Haley with the equipment, pioneer ingenuity, and
stone it now preserves. Built southwest of Nekoma in 1883, the house was
moved in 1963 to its current location to preserve the ingenuity and perseverance
of the Kansas pioneers. The museum includes an authentic stone quarry re-creation
illustrating the methods used to cut posts for fencing as well as tools
and items depicting the history of the post rock unique to this region.
Learn more about the history of the museum.

Early pioneers were faced with an unusual difficulty
on the expansive plains of Kansas; lack of trees. Most pioneers traveled
from the coast where trees were readily available for building, shade,
food, and firewood. Kansas, though, was a vast dry prairie where few trees
were able to grow due to the drought-like conditions and high occurrences
of prairie fires. Early pioneers quickly found a substitution for firewood,
a source of fuel very abundant on the open prairies, bison chips. The large
round piles of bison dung were literally everywhere on the prairie and
burned hot, making it preferable to wood for cooking. However, the pioneers
probably did not consider making their homes out of this abundant resource!
Instead, the first pioneers made their homes from something even more abundant,
the ground itself. Most pioneers could not afford to ship lumber from the
coast to build houses, so they made houses in the ground. Some pioneers
settled on land that had hills into which they dug their houses, these
structures are called dugouts. Pioneers not so fortunate as to have hills
on their land, dug down, making dugouts below the ground surface. Other
pioneers cut squares from the soil making sod (soil) bricks to
build houses. Dugouts and sod houses protected the early pioneers from
most dangers, but torrential rainfalls would flood dugouts and common prairie
fires could destroy sod houses. These early pioneers of Kansas, like all
pioneers, continued to search for a better way to live. These industrious
pioneers discovered a layer of rock, located only a few feet below the
soil surface, that could be used to make permanent, weather resistant,
beautiful buildings. This rock layer is known as limestone and due to the
geological formation is just
the right thickness (8 to 12 inches) for building stones and posts. When
limestone is first exposed it is soft and chalky, making it easier to drill
and dress (form). However, once the stone has been exposed to air, the
edges become hard making it an exceptional building material for the plains
pioneer. At first, limestone blocks were just used to form the walls of
dugouts. As the pioneers recognized the structural potential of limestone,
more permanent all-stone buildings were constructed. Limestone blocks quickly
became a common building material throughout north central Kansas. Stone
blocks were used to build schools, churches, homes, bridges, posts, decorative
stone, window trims, steps, hitching posts, troughs (feed and water), tombstones,
and walkways.

On display in the museum is a diorama that illustrates
quarring tools and techniques.

Early limestone quarrying was done at the edges
of ravines or outcroppings where the limestone layer was exposed by erosion
of the surrounding soil. At first, pioneers sledged out building rocks
and dressed (formed and sized) each block with stone hammers. Sledging
describes the use of hand drills and hammers to make a straight line of
holes along the exposed layer. Once the holes were drilled pinch bars were
used to pry the blocks loose. Smaller drills and hammers were then used
to size and shape each block for building.

The large tool to the far left is a stone hand drill,
called a drilling buck. Men would sit on the bench and crank the handle,
twisting the bit into the limestone layer. Laying directly below the hand
drill is a bit that was used with the drill. To the right of the drill
are some feathers and wedges

Pioneer innovation quickly changed the method
of quarrying with the invention of specialized tools. Now blocks and posts
were quarried using hand-operated drills to place holes into the limestone
strata 8 inches apart. Then feathers and wedges were placed in each hole
and pounded until the rock split into desired lengths. Some historical
sources report that stone blocks could be quarried in the winter by filling
the drill holes with water, as the water froze it would expand and split
the rock. In the early 1900's, “Nelse” Sankey, a local blacksmith, invented a machine
that used a Maytag engine. This machine operated like a sewing machine,
when the drill operator stepped on a low handle, the engine would power
the drill.

Depicted here is a limestone corner post with barbed wire.
This post stands at the entrance to the museum and illustrates the typical
method of reinforcing corner posts as well as how barbed wire was attatched
to the posts.

Another problem that the homesteader on the
treeless prairie faced by the early 1860s was a need to protect crops
from cattle and wildlife. During this time the cattle industry was booming
and existing range laws protected the cattle owner, requiring farmers to
protect their own crops. Early farmers found that the Osage Orange tree
grew quickly in the dry Kansas soil and would form a thick hedge impeding
cattle and other wildlife that liked to feed on growing crops. Osage Orange,
while not as expensive as wooden fence posts, was a costly fence to maintain.
So the ever-ingenious pioneer found yet another use for the local limestone
layer . . . fence posts.

Initially, farmers used the limestone fence
posts, now called post rocks, to support smooth wire. Smooth wire was not
effective in controlling livestock or wildlife so the use of any fence
post was not in high demand. However with the development of barbed
wire (a low-cost, highly effective wire), the need for sturdy, low
cost, accessible fence posts made the post rocks a valuable asset to the
region's farmers. Typically stone posts were quarried where the limestone
layer was close to 8 inches thick and each post would be split 6 feet long
and 8 inches wide. Each post weighed between 250 to 450 pounds and a team
of horses could only haul, at most, 8 posts at a time. Most farmers chose
to quarry and haul their own posts, however, many could afford the 25 cents
charge per post (delivery included). Post rocks were quarried the same
as building blocks, but the increased size and weight made moving them
more difficult. The typical method for hauling the posts was to quarry
and dress the posts, drive a wagon directly over each post, and attach
the post in a sling on the underside of the wagon. The farmer would then
drive along the fence line and drop down posts at each posthole, usually
set at 10 steps apart. When the posts were released from the underside
of the wagon, one end would slide into the hole as the post was lifted
upright. An average of 25 posts could be completed each day and typically
only the number that were going to be placed were drilled each day to in
order to preserve the softness of the posts for dressing. Most post rocks
were dressed with 3 or 4 shallow troughs (nicks) to hold wire strands in
place but a few farmers drilled holes to thread wire through the post.
Eventually, farmers learned to appreciate these post rocks that had a lasting
quality of 60 or more years as opposed to the 6 to 10 years of a wooden
post.

Post rock fences were used over 40 thousand
miles of country, predominately situated throughout Washington county 200
miles north to Ford county. The widespread use of post rock fencing and
stone post houses created a landscape and culture embued with the spirit
of ingenious pioneers. Each post is unique, no two fence posts are the
same size, shape, or color, and many even have fossils.
Even today, many of the buildings and fences quarried by hand and hauled
by horses, are still in use. Why
did people stop using post rocks?